Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was born in Portland, Maine, to an old New England family. Longfellow published his first poem at age thirteen. At the age of fifteen, he attended Bowdoin College where he was a classmate of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Longfellow excelled as a student and later taught modern language—French, Spanish, and Italian—at Bowdoin College and at Harvard. His poem The Song of Hiawatha sold over one million copies during his lifetime and helped establish him as a writer. He also wrote "Paul Revere's Ride" and several books of poetry, including Evangeline and The Courtship of Miles Standish.